<casaxml xsi:schemaLocation="http://casa.nrao.edu/schema/casa.xsd file:///opt/casa/code/xmlcasa/xml/casa.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://casa.nrao.edu/schema/psetTypes.html">
<task category="simulation" name="simobserve" type="function">
<shortdescription>visibility simulation task</shortdescription>
This task simulates interferometric or total power measurment sets. It
is currently optimized for JVLA and ALMA, although many observatories
are included, and adding your own is simply a matter of providing an
antenna location file (see below).
simobserve is meant to work in conjunction with the simanalyze
task. Calling simobserve one more times will produce simulated
measurement set(s), which are then gridded, inverted and deconvolved
into output simulated images using simanalyze.
ALMA users are encouraged to use the simalma task, which provides
additional information on the multiple simobserve and simanalyze calls
required to simulate an ALMA observation which may consist of 12m
interferometric, 7m interferometric, and 12m total power data.
More information and examples are availible at
http://casaguides.nrao.edu/index.php?title=Simulating_Observations_in_CASA
Please contact the Helpdesk with any questions (see
https://casa.nrao.edu/help_desk_all.shtml)
<param name="project" type="string">
<shortdescription>Root prefix for output file names</shortdescription>
<description>root prefix for output file names</description>
<param name="skymodel" type="string">
<shortdescription>model image to observe</shortdescription>
<description>Model image to observe
* simobserve uses a CASA or fits image. If you
merely have a grid of numbers, you will need to
write them out as fits or write a CASA script to
read them in and use the ia tool to create an
image and insert the data.
* simobserve does NOT require a coordinate system
in the header. If the coordinate information is
incomplete, missing, or you would like to
override it, set the appropriate "in"
parameters. NOTE that setting those parameters
simply changes the header values, ignoring any
values already in the image. No regridding is
* You can also manipulate an image header manually
with the "imhead" task.
* If you have a proper Coordinate System,
simobserve will do its best to generate
<param subparam="true" name="inbright" type="string">
<shortdescription>Peak brightness to scale the image to in Jy/pixel</shortdescription>
<description>Peak brightness to scale the image to, in Jy/pixel
Default: '' (i.e., unchanged)
Example: inbright='1.2Jy/pixel'
Note: "unchanged" will take the numerical values
in your image and assume they are in Jy/pixel,
even if it says some other unit in the header.
<param subparam="true" name="indirection" type="string">
<shortdescription>Set new direction, e.g. J2000 19h00m00 -40d00m00</shortdescription>
<description>Central direction to place the sky model image